Great Character Actors of Today #4

July 15, 2011

Distinguishing Features: A rotund figure and a rich Texas accent that can come out warm or mean.

A Holdout: She eschewed television for stage and film roles until joining the ensemble of Sidney Lumet’s 100 Centre Street in 2000.

On the Big Screen: Supporting roles in Lorenzo’s Oil, The Firm, Robert Benton’s Nobody’s Fool and Twilight, and last year’s Secretariat. Hilary Swank’s mother in Million Dollar Baby, and a lead role in Alexander Payne’s segment of Paris, Je t’aime that he wrote for her.

I Wish I Had Seen: Her Tony-nominated turn as Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opposite Ned Beatty.

A recent patron: Dmitry Lipkin, creator of The Riches and co-creator of Hung, middling shows with good supporting parts for character players. Martindale did her best work in years as a stifled, pill-popping McMansionite with a closeted husband on The Riches, then swung through Hung once as a timid client of the male prostitute protagonist.